In celebration of Valentine’s Day, Hoboken Buzz Cuts, 212 Washington St., sponsored an event for Locks of Love, a non-profit that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children suffering from long term medical hair loss due to illness.

Sixteen women, including moms, students, and business women on their lunch hour, donated ponytails’ worth of hair to the cause. The required amount for a donation is 10”, but several women donated up to 14”.

“A couple of them had such thick hair that two to three ponytails were collected from each of them,” Joanna Metelitsa (a soon to be Hoboken resident who also cut her own hair off) said in e-mail. Metelitsa helped to orchestrate the event, as a firm supporter in the cause.

The event was also able to collect $407 from $15 haircuts that were offered to those who weren’t chopping off all of their locks. A hundred percent of the proceeds went to Locks of Love (LOL). Several people also responded to the event by donating directly to LOL, bringing the donation even higher.

“One donor had not cut her hair in three years,” said Metelitsa. “Another had been growing her hair to give to a young girl with cancer. Sadly, the little girl passed away before the hair was given, so this women was happy to discover that we were holding this event and thankful that her hair was still going to a child in need. The greatest success of the day was in the selflessness of all our donors.”

How Locks of Love works

Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization started in 1998 that provides vacuum-fitted hairpieces to children in need. Locks of Love uses donated human hair to create the highest quality of hair prosthetics. Most children who have lost their hair suffer from a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure. Others have suffered from severe burns or injuries or endured radiation treatment.

Hairpieces require between 6-10 ponytails and take approximately 4-6 months to manufacture.